handling them, as shown in "The Strange Case of Mr. Lucraft and Other
Stories." I am now in the Opposition.

We will call the bungalow Katmal dâk-bungalow. But _that_ was the smallest
part of the horror. A man with a sensitive hide has no right to sleep in
dâk-bungalows. He should marry. Katmal dâk-bungalow was old and rotten and
unrepaired. The floor was of worn brick, the walls were filthy, and the
windows were nearly black with grime. It stood on a bypath largely used by
native Sub-Deputy Assistants of all kinds, from Finance to Forests; but
real Sahibs were rare. The _khansamah_, who was nearly bent double with
old age, said so.

When I arrived, there was a fitful, undecided rain on the face of the
land, accompanied by a restless wind, and every gust made a noise like the
rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy palms outside. The _khansamah_
completely lost his head on my arrival. He had served a Sahib once. Did I
know that Sahib? He gave me the name of a well-known man who has been
buried for more than a quarter of a century, and showed me an ancient
daguerreotype of that man in his prehistoric youth. I had seen a steel
engraving of him at the head of a double volume of Memoirs a month before,
and I felt ancient beyond telling.

The day shut in and the _khansamah_ went to get me food. He did not go
through the, pretense of calling it "_khana_"--man's victuals. He said
"_ratub_," and that means, among other things, "grub"--dog's rations.
There was no insult in his choice of the term. He had forgotten the other
word, I suppose.

While he was cutting up the dead bodies of animals, I settled myself down,
after exploring the dâk-bungalow. There were three rooms, beside my own,